


Better to have Loved and Lost

by hatebeat



Series: Putting the gears in motion [12]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatebeat/pseuds/hatebeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring, 1994. Toki makes a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better to have Loved and Lost

**Author's Note:**

> It's probably in your best interest to read [Toki Wartooth, Not a Bumblebee](http://archiveofourown.org/works/979789) before reading this one, but your call.

_Spring, 1994. Chicago, Illinois._

Life at Miss Alice's Home for Lost Bumblebees was boring, Toki decided almost right away. He had to wake up really early and help make breakfast. Then, he had to eat together with everyone, which was awkward because he couldn't talk to anyone. After that, there were chores, or school, depending on the day. After school, there were more chores, and then they had to make and eat dinner. After that came homework, and then they had free time while they took turns bathing before bed. 

It was very structured and his time was very organized, and Toki was able to get used to it right away. It wasn't that different from his life at home, except that nobody beat him for anything, and he didn't have to work as hard. But it was still boring for some reason that Toki couldn't really put his finger on.

About a week after Toki started living there, there was an evening while Toki was sitting in the common room waiting for his turn to bathe. He was looking at stupid children's picture books that they had given him in his class at school to help him pick up English, but he wasn't a child and they just weren't interesting to him! Just as he was getting frustrated, a boy came and sat down directly next to him on the couch.

The boy's name was Ludo, Toki was pretty sure, and like Toki, he also didn't speak a lot of English. Everyone else there could, but Ludo was different. He could speak _enough_ , enough to talk to the rest of them, but even Toki, with his incomprehension, could tell that his words were slow and deliberate. He was a little bit older than Toki, he was pretty sure, but not by much. 

Still, nobody had ever sat next to him before. Not like that, not intentionally. Slowly, Toki looked sidelong at him, but Ludo was just looking down at his own lap. Toki dared to look over at what he was staring at and saw that he was drawing on a pad of paper. When Ludo noticed Toki watching him, he flipped the page of the drawing pad and tore a piece of paper out to hand to Toki. 

"Takk," Toki said quietly, closing his book. He picked up one of Ludo's crayons and put the paper on top of the book for a hard surface to draw on. He started drawing the cat he had seen that afternoon on the way home from school. He saw a lot of cats just hanging out outside here all the time, and Toki loved all of them, but none of them would ever let him get close.

After his drawing started to look more like a cat, Ludo's hand suddenly obtsructed his view of his paper. He was pointing at the cat. Toki looked up at him, confused, and then on his own paper, Ludo drew a question mark. Breaking into a grin, Toki hurriedly drew a building, on which he wrote _skole_. Then on the other side of the cat, he drew another building that resembled their house. Ludo was still watching him attentively, so Toki drew himself, carrying his bag and walking past the cat.

Ludo smiled at him, then, and turned to a new page. He started to draw a dog, big and brown and shaggy, and when he was finished, he showed it to Toki and then pointed to Toki's paper. He was indicating the area behind the school Toki had drawn. So there was a stray dog like that living around there? Toki wanted to see it, too! Maybe even pet it. Usually dogs were nicer about that than cats were.

Toki started to draw small versions of himself and Ludo standing behind the school together, and then he copied the dog Ludo had drawn, too. Maybe they could go see it together, right? Toki looked at Ludo for approval, and Ludo nodded, grinning back at him.

That night, as Toki crawled into bed, he thought about the fact that he had just made a friend. He realised, then, that it wasn't that he found life at Miss Alice's Home for Lost Bumblebees boring. It was that life there was _lonely_. At least until now.

\---

He and Ludo started walking to and from school together and hanging out with one another in the evenings, drawing each other pictures telling about their days. During chores and things, Ludo even helped talk to the others for Toki. If Toki was confused or unsure, Ludo would use his own limited English ability to get confirmation from the others. And unlike with the others, Toki didn't feel bad about trying to say the English words he _did_ know to Ludo, because Ludo was in the same boat as he was. Ludo wouldn't think he was stupid. Ludo helped to make him feel _included._

It was about a week after they started hanging out together that Toki was surprised to find him missing from the common room. Ludo had left the study room and finished his homework long before Toki had, so he figured he would be out there waiting, but when Toki came in, their corner of the room was deserted. 

Uncertain, Toki crept up the stairs to the second floor where Ludo's bedroom was. Toki had never been inside it, but the name _Ludomierz_ was spelled out in letters stuck across the door. Toki lifted his hand to knock on the door, but as he did, he heard something strange. Hand frozen in the air, Toki narrowed his eyes and put his ear to the door.

There was music coming out. It was quiet, very quiet, but he could hear it, just barely.

Instead of knocking, curiosity took hold of him, and he curled his fingers around the knob and pushed the door creaking open, just wide enough to pop his head in. What he saw when he did was Ludo sitting cross-legged on his bed, looking up at Toki like a deer caught in headlights.

"Du spille gitar?" Toki asked him, ignoring the language barrier between them.

"To moja gitara," Ludo responded, arm curling protectively around the body of the guitar. "It is mine guitar."

Toki pushed the door closed behind him and stepped fully into the room. Ludo looked... guilty, for some reason? Toki didn't really understand. He sat down on the edge of Ludo's bed, but gave him some space.

"Vil du spille for meg?" he asked, and Ludo just stared at him, so Toki formed his arms like he was playing guitar, air-playing for a moment, and then pointed back at Ludo.

Ludo seemed distrustful or something that Toki couldn't quite place, and then he started to play. It was a guitar that was meant to be plugged in, Toki realised, but he wasn't really sure how that would work. It wasn't plugged in, so the sound was very quiet, but still enough to hear. Toki looked around for what he could maybe plug it into, but there didn't seem to be anything, and there was no cord or anything coming out of it. 

Ludo was good at it, though. Toki watched his fingers and was immediately jealous. It wasn't that he was playing really fast or anything, but he was definitely making music, and it sounded pretty. Toki wanted to be able to do it, too. He wanted to ask Ludo how he got a guitar, but he wasn't sure how to ask that. He wasn't even sure he could draw that question.

For a while, Ludo kept playing, and Toki laid back on the bed and just listened to him, folding his arms behind his head. And Toki smiled. He felt at peace, and he never would have been able to feel this way back home.

\---

A couple weeks later, Ludo stopped walking home from school with Toki. The first day it happened, Toki had been confused and waited for a long time for Ludo before giving up and going home by himself. That evening, Ludo apologised to him and drew him a series of pictures, explaining. Ludo played soccer at school, and now he would have to stay later after classes were over most days of the week. So Toki would have to walk home alone now, which left Toki feeling very lonely, but it wasn't Ludo's fault. Toki forgave him.

He would just have to work harder at learning stupid English so he could make some stupid friends. 

But once Ludo did get home, he still hung out with Toki. They still drew to each other, and they practiced together what little English they could. And then right before bed every night, Ludo would play guitar for Toki, sometimes in his room and sometimes in Toki's room. So it wasn't that big of a difference. The only difference was that Toki went and fed the dog that lived behind the school treats he'd saved from lunch by himself while Ludo played soccer. Poor dog only got treats from one of their lunch instead of both of them. He must have been hungry...

When Toki figured out where the soccer field was, he went to watch him practice one day. But after only standing there for a few minutes, the players started to stare at him. When Ludo noticed, he jogged over to Toki, and pointed away. Toki had to leave? That wasn't fair, though, he just wanted to watch. Ludo apologetically put his hand on Toki's shoulder when he saw the face that Toki made, but Toki just sighed, and turned to go home. By himself. Alone.

That night, though, Ludo didn't come back. Usually, after playing soccer, he would come back just in time for dinner, but Ludo didn't come back at all. Toki sat through dinner and barely touched his food, and in the middle of dinner, Miss Alice got a phone call. She looked and sounded upset, and she told them all something, but Toki didn't know at all what she was saying. He couldn't understand, and he hated himself for not being able to understand, for not working harder at English. For not knowing. 

Ludo didn't come back even after dinner, and still wasn't back by time Toki had bathed. Before bed, Toki went to Ludo's room, hoping he would be there, but he wasn't. The room was dark and empty, and his guitar was propped up against the wall in the corner, looking sad and abandoned.

He didn't understand what was going on, and why Ludo hadn't come home, but that was the night Toki picked up a guitar for the first time.


End file.
